


What Women Want

by WinterSnufkin



Series: Zuko vs. Adults [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Anxiety, Brief Jealousy, Extreme Touch Starvation, F/M, Past Child Abuse, Zuko has a very complicated relationship with intimacy, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko surrounded by red flags that he's on a date right now:, Zuko vs. Adults, due to being the victim of violence all his life., huh this ambassador sucks at asking for policy change, that's why it's rated t other than mai's cursing, the adults in this one are women trying to romance a sixteen year old for power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterSnufkin/pseuds/WinterSnufkin
Summary: To be good at politics, you have to understand people; Zuko’s perception of his own skill in this regard swings wildly on a pendulum between ‘hey I’m actually pretty good at this’ and ‘why am I such a fucking idiot’.
Relationships: Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Zuko vs. Adults [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1766464
Comments: 49
Kudos: 2468
Collections: Finished111





	What Women Want

Life as a Firelord is hard. To be good at politics, you have to understand people; Zuko’s perception of his own skill in this regard swings wildly on a pendulum between ‘ _hey I’m actually pretty good at this_ ’ and ‘ _why am I such a fucking idiot_ ’.

Traveling the world has given him so much knowledge and experience with human nature and the cultures of the other nations, especially in those times when he was disguised and treated like any other man. He knows how desperation changes people’s lives, their morals; how even the best of people can do horrible things if they feel that they have to.

He uses this to fuel his speeches, his negotiations with the other nations, and it _works_. People quickly learn to respect him and listen when he has something to say, and his advisors are all in awe of how competent he is on the throne, how compassionate, and yet still firm in his beliefs and handling of dissenters.

He thinks that this is why they’ve all completely forgotten how young he is. He may be extremely knowledgeable in many fields relevant to his rule, but there are a lot of gaps in his understanding that no one realizes they need to fill.

Exiled from society at only thirteen, obsessed with a political mission throughout all of his formative years-- he has _no_ experience with basic socializing.

When you remove the context of political negotiations, Zuko has no idea how to _talk_ to people.

He’s aware of this. At first, he tried to approach every conversation as though it were a business proposal. Two weeks later, his advisors arranged a meeting and regretfully informed him that rumors had spread throughout the capital that he was a workaholic automaton who has no understanding of the word ‘fun’.

He arranges a city-wide dance festival for damage control, much to Aang’s delight. At the festival, he doesn’t speak to anyone because he doesn’t want to ruin anyone’s good time with his social awkwardness.

His advisors tell him three days later that the rumor-mill believes he’s gone mute in a freak firebending accident.

Zuko growls and bangs his head on the table a few times until his advisors _advise_ that he try to avoid giving himself brain damage. Zuko wants to yell at them, but knows that he can’t.

( _Nobody tells him that he could, actually, if he wanted to. His forefathers never hesitated. But the castle’s servants are singing as they do laundry for the first time in over a hundred years. So no, no one tells him. And among themselves they suggest that even if they did, they don’t think their young ruler would take the chance to turn on them. But best not to test that theory_.)

The only person consistently in the palace that he doesn’t have to try to filter himself around is Mai. Denying the position of Fire Lady for the much less tedious role of Royal Consort, Mai has been at his side for almost every moment of free time that he manages to scrounge up.

He can be as awkward and stilted as he wants and it never seems to make her like him less. Sometimes it even earns him one of those dry laughs that make his heart race.

Sometimes when he’s being carried to some meeting or other on a palanquin, she’ll hop in mid-transit and sit with him, launching into some monotonous complaint about her boring day and then hopping back out again right before they reach their destination.

He shows up to those meetings smiling, and he knows they whisper about it, but he can’t seem to stop himself.

One thing that nobody knows, not even his nosy advisors, is that he and Mai haven’t been… intimate yet.

Sometimes she slinks into his Royal Bedchambers in the middle of the night (and he tries not to think about how easy it is for her, how the guards never catch her) and wakes him up with an embrace from behind.

He feels her slim hands on his chest, and he knows she can feel his heart pounding, how it doesn’t slow down even when he knows it’s her, and she presses a small, rare smile into the back of his neck and gives off a general air of satisfaction and comfort.

She’s rarely there when he wakes up again in the morning ( _how_ did he manage to fall asleep like that?), but when she is, she presses a long, heated kiss into his mouth before making her exit, shocking the guards with her presence on her way out.

There was one time-- _one_ \-- back when he was still in his first month of being crowned, when that kiss had turned into something more, and her hands had slipped beneath his silk nightgown to rest on his thighs, and he’d thought to himself-- _this is it. It’s going to happen_.

But then the hands pulled back out to rest safely on his chest again, and he’d only realized how violently he was trembling when it started to die down a few minutes later.

He was so ashamed, so afraid that he’d scared her off, but then she returned again a few nights later just to hold him, and then again after that.

He rearranges his schedule with a mad fervor and manages to secure three consecutive hours of free time to take her out for a picnic in the courtyard. He can tell that she thinks it’s cheesy, a little too cliche for someone like her, but he thinks she figures out part way through that it’s mostly for him anyway, because she suddenly takes his hand in the grass and presses one of her smiles into his shoulder, turning a nice evening into a perfect one.

 _Someday_ , he thinks to himself. _Someday I’ll be okay_.

And he knows she’ll wait for him.

\-----

Then things get a little weird.

The thing about Mai being his consort instead of his wife is that _technically_ he’s still up for grabs. He doesn’t really register this because he doesn’t try to hide his squishy romantic feelings for Mai, so he just kind of assumes that everyone realizes that he’s off limits, and _this_ is where his gaps in social knowledge start to kick in in a _bad_ way.

Ambassador Wang Xiu Ying, a middle-aged woman from the Earth Kingdom, asks for their meeting to take place separate from the other ambassadors, because what she has to say pertains only to her city. She also suggests that there be food served while they talk.

Firelord Zuko thinks, _ugh_ , because he hates one-on-one meetings, but agrees for the sake of improving foreign relations and possibly securing an ally.

The servers bring out ten different dishes and there’s an artfully arranged centerpiece on the table of firelilies and tiered candles. The Ambassador talks for ten minutes about nothing at all and the Firelord wonders if she’s trying to ramp up to some new policy she wants.

She mentions that he’s turning seventeen in two months and that despite sixteen being the one where he came of age, it still ought to be a big celebration.

Zuko gets a weird feeling and cuts the meeting off early. She offers to escort him back to his chambers and he offhandedly declines, already making his way out of the room.

\-----

Tribeswoman Amka offers him some kind of shiny necklace that looks like Katara's and he gently refuses, citing his decision not to accept gifts from political allies in the hopes of preventing a habit of attempted bribery. Nothing against her personally, it’s a very nice gift, but he’s trying to set a responsible precedent.

He doesn’t mention that he’s not a big fan of chokers, anyway, and he’s not in the habit of wearing blue, even if the little carved stone was kind of pretty.

\-----

He’s at some kind of political ball and _everyone_ is asking him to dance with them. He keeps looking around for Mai, because even though he can never officially invite her, she always shows up... but she’s nowhere to be found.

He’s starting to get stressed out.

He’s _always_ stressed out, but this is worse than usual. Dancing with people means he has to let them _touch_ him, and even through a million layers of clothing, there’s no part of him that wants strangers putting their hands on him.

He wants to dance with _Mai_ , because she remembers to keep her hands on his shoulders and not let them slide down lower to his waist like these other people, and _where_ did they learn how to dance, anyway, to make that kind of mistake?

\-----

Mai hasn’t done one of her night visits in weeks and he’s trying not to be upset about it.

He hasn’t seen her at all, actually, so when he catches a glimpse of her retreating back in the courtyard on his way to a meeting, he rushes over to catch her attention, even though he’s already kind of late.

“Mai!” he shouts, flushed. She slowly turns around and he smiles at her. “I have a meeting, but, when do you want to meet up?”

“Making time for your favorite consort?” she intones flatly.

His smile drops immediately and he squints, confused. “What?”

“I’m just saying,” she drawls, dragging out every consonant, and that’s when it hits him full throttle that she’s _pissed_. “Based on what your guards have been saying, you’re going to need to put one of those new revolving doors on your bedchamber.”

“What?” he croaks again, fingernails digging into his palms as he tries not to suddenly start breathing fire in the middle of his courtyard. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you serious?” she starts, then stops, and suddenly _she’s_ the one squinting at _him_. His eyes feel very hot all of a sudden, and he wants to leave. “Oh. Huh. You _are_ serious.”

He spins around and disengages, because Uncle’s been teaching him that it’s more mature to walk away than to start screaming, and also because he needs to go cancel his meeting _now_.

“Wait,” she calls, and he does _not_ wait.

\-----

She shows up that night, and he’s already awake because he couldn’t sleep.

He feels her sit on the edge of the bed and keeps his eyes closed. He’s not exactly sure why he’s afraid, or what he’s afraid of, but it’s _there_ , and he knows that if she had Toph’s abilities she would feel his heartbeat thundering through the bedding.

He wonders if catching a chest full of lightning has made his heart more sensitive, or something, but he’s not a healer so he can’t be sure.

“I’m an asshole,” she says, and he bites his lower lip to keep from blurting out _no you’re not_ , or _this is all my fault_ , or _sometimes I can’t even imagine what would drive you to still want to spend time with me after everything_.

“I am,” she insists, even though he hasn’t opened his mouth. “In my head, I’m always so self-assured of how fucking smart I am, but it never even occurred to me that those stupid rumors didn’t track at _all_ with what I know about you. I just got jealous, and it was a dick move.”

“Okay,” he rasps out, and she sighs.

He feels her hesitate, then move to hold him from behind like she usually does. When her hands fall into place on his chest, he puts his own over them and holds on tight. He bites his lip even harder and tastes blood, trying with all his self control not to let on that he’s weeping into the pillow.

“Zuko,” she whispers, and he thinks she might know anyway, despite his best efforts. “I trust you. I’m sorry I forgot that for a little while. It won’t happen again.”

He shudders and curls up, and she’s right there with him. The next morning, the kiss she gives him is soft and sweet.

\-----

After that, Firelord Zuko gets surprisingly few further attempts at courtship, if any. He’s so relieved that he doesn’t question it.

Mai smirks to herself and thinks of all the beautiful, customized daggers she’s gotten in the habit of gifting to anyone who gets that glint in their eye. It’s technically legal, but they all know to back off, after that.


End file.
